After dropping Mrs Dragonspeed at the airport, I headed out to Westham Island for a nice walk around the Reifel Bird Sanctuary… in the COLD winter weather. (Cold in Vancouver means a bit below 0C ) Some of the highlights are here

New Year’s eve ended up being super snowy here. It seems that December 2016 was a SNOW MONTH, here in Burnaby BC. (We are technically a TEMPERATE RAINFOREST!!!) I went out yesterday and shot some pictures of the lights around our neighborhood in the snow. 1. New Year’s Eve – Snow and Lights by Brian Hampson, on Flickr

Day 3 of our time on Zanzibar took us down to the Jozani forest reserve to see the Zanzibar Red Colobus Monkeys. For many years, the local farmers have had an ongoing battle with the Zanzibar Red Colobus monkeys due to the monkeys’ predilection for unripened fruit. However, due to the increasing popularity of the tourist center for visiting the monkeys, more money has been able to reach the villages from tourism, meaning that a small crop loss is outweighed by the tourist value of the monkeys. Slowly, more and more locals are becoming accepting of these primates which are endemic to this part of Zanzibar.

On completion of a seven day Safari in Northern Tanzania, we were lucky to have passed by a Masai Market, which we stopped and visited. It was unlike any farmers market in North America, that’s for sure!

In my opinion, this bird ranks right up there with "Lilac Breasted Roller" for incredibly sexy bird! Did you know it is the National Bird of Uganda??? These pictures were taken in the Ngorongoro Caldera, Tanzania – May 30th.